Mel Szyperski

Reflection Paper

Studying psychology at Loras College not only increased my knowledge of the field, but
enriched my personal beliefs and empathetic nature in communicating with others. With adding a
double major in music and a minor in studio art, I obtained abstract and critical thinking while
having the chance to work with many professors and peers of different background. With the
course work and disciplines provided, I was able to strengthen my personal ideals and ethics while
being able to communicate clearly and concisely with others, specifically lending a hand to
controversial topics.

Since having liberal arts incorporated within my psychology courses, not only have I
become more of a reflective thinker and responsible contributor, I have learned that there is no
one way to apply, learn, and teach psychology. With the liberal arts background taught at Loras
College, ones personal beliefs merge with the field of psychology. This has led me to become
more of a reflective thinker and responsible contributor than I originally was before being
accepted to Loras. Within my five years of being here, these dispositions have only strengthened.

I was always a reflective thinker before entering Loras College. I tended to think about
something for a long time before making a decision, or before voicing my opinion. To a degree I
do not take as long as I used to to make a contribution to the topic at hand; however, this is not
due to the lack of reflective thinking but the opposite. Instead of needing a long time to think
about my ethics, Loras College has helped me with developing my own morals, and therefore the
same, if not more, amount of reflective thinking happens before I voice a topic within less time.

As with reflective thinking, I was also always a responsible contributor. Before Loras
College, I spent the greater portion of my time towards bettering and enriching both myself and
my surroundings. I was always involved in the arts, as I am now, and for a lot of the time had a job
to financially aid myself and to relieve others of lack of employees in the workplace. Before Loras,
after school I was involved in the fine arts such as ceramics, painting, and drawing; often helping
others and creating creations of my own outside of school hours. I was also musically involved, a
lot of my time dedicated to marching band and becoming a contributor towards the drum line. All
of this while also handling an out-of-school job. These transferred to Loras College and blossomed
into more aspects that make me a responsible contributor. I would often stay late in school
settings finishing musical or art projects until security had to tell me that I had to finish the next
day. This hard work ethic contributed itself to recitals in which I performed, or art galleries in
which I have been featured in. I also have held a job during most my time in Loras College. I found
myself volunteering on top of this as well; not being a part of Psi-chi, but still volunteering and
helping out with their smaller events such as fundraisers.

These now lead to how I handle the topic of controversies in Psychology. Some of the
more common controversies being; the use of animals in psychological research, the use of